It does not mean "someone who apologizes for someone else." Rather, it means "someone who makes formal arguments defending or justifying something else."

It does look an awful lot like the word "apologize." That is because the word "apologize" in English originally meant "to speak in defense of something" as it did in its original Greek and then Latin forms. Over the centuries, the word shifted to something like "to speak in self-defense," then "to make excuses for one's self," and then to its current meaning. On the other hand, "apologist" and "apologetics," being specific to academia and theology, were used less frequently, and so had less opportunity to shift, and so kept their original meaning of "defender" and "defense" respectively.

Anyway. When you use the word "apologist," you do not mean "someone who makes excuses for someone else," or "someone who accepts blame on behalf of someone else." You are saying, "someone who offers formal arguments in defense of someone or something else."

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